'The Brady Bunch' 50th Anniversary: Christopher Knight Remembers

It’s one thing to have to take in the fact that The Brady Bunch is turning 50 this year, but something pretty incredible to know that it’s still a part of the pop culture conversation — and will get one more shot of life in the form of HGTV’s forthcoming reality series A Very Brady Renovation. On top of that, CBS Home Video has released a 31-disc box set tied in to the 50th anniversary featuring almost everything ever produced featuring the bunch called Brady. “Thirty-one discs in this set,” Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) proclaims in an exclusive interview (much more on that shortly). “It’s pretty wild!”

For those who don’t know a Brady from a Partridge (if there is such a person!), CBS describes the original series as follows: “When widower Mike Brady (Robert Reed) marries a lovely lady named Carol Ann (Florence Henderson), their two families become one. The six children include Carol’s daughters Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb) and Cindy (Susan Olsen), as well as Mike’s sons Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland). Together with their dog Tiger and quirky housekeeper, Alice (Ann B. Davis), this wild clan became the Brady Bunch!”

And made TV history, with the original show — which ran until 1974 — inspiring the spinoffs The Brady Kids (a Saturday morning cartoon), The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, The Brady Brides, A Very Brady Christmas TV movie, The Bradys, the theatrical movies The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, as well as the TV movie The Brady Bunch in the White House. Everything but the variety hour (produced by a different company) is included in the box set. There’s also the TV movie Growing Up Brady, based on Barry Williams’ biography of the same name and starring Adam Brody, Rebeccah Bush and The Big Bang Theory‘s Kaley Cuoco.

christopher-knight-2 — David Walter Banks

The last time Closer Weekly spoke to Chris, it was a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career and the impact of The Brady Bunch on both. It was also conducted at the very start of the HGTV Brady project — which transforms the interior of the house that served as the show’s exterior into an exact duplicate of the sets the actors performed on — and Chris didn’t really know what to expect. His voice at the time seemed a little tentative and he was hoping for the best. Now, though, he’s reached the other side and, as you’ll see from the following discussion, the whole thing has pretty much blown him away as he’s watched fantasy somehow transform into reality.

For our written interview with Chris, please scroll down. You can also listen to our conversation on our Classic TV & Film podcast.

What are your overall thought on the 50-year legacy of ‘The Brady Bunch’?

Really couldn’t see it all coming. Certainly the 50th anniversary opportunity presented to us by Discovery was fabulous, and what a way to celebrate 50 years of history and what the Brady mystique and feel has meant for our nation. Because, really, it’s a 50 year anniversary of a Brady kind of identity — it’s a quintessential American family that we now represent and we’re the standard bearers for. Perhaps we’re just the last ones standing of a number of shows like it that had that kind of feel. That simplicity and goodness kind of harkened back to a time even prior to when we were shooting the show, to the shows of the late ’50s and early ’60s. The whole thing is a great honor … and now I’m losing track of your question [laughs].

Basically thoughts of the overall legacy. But for yourself, personally, given that you were this little kid when this started, and here you are now in 2019 looking back, what is it like?

It’s odd and wonderful all at the same time. And it’s not bad to be loved and not having to fight the idea that this thing is going to cripple the future of my career. I don’t have those concerns at this time in my life. It’s just a wonderful honor that I have done something that is beholden by so many, remembered by so many, and that so many wish to thank us and remember us by continuing to consume the materials that are left behind.

Beyond that, it might be a reflection of the times as well. Like old jeans that are comfortable, or slippers, old sweats — they’re all comfortable. It’s your blankie, and there are times when adults need their blankie. We’re probably in one of those periods right now, wishing that this complicated world that we live in was as simple as life seemed when we watched The Brady Bunch as kids. But life for adults is nowhere near as simple as it is for kids, or that we as parents or adults try to make life appear for children. And the Bradys do a great job of giving you that to present to your children if you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

So there remains that really strong connection between the show and children?

I think the Bradys represent for a child who’s 5 or 6 the kind of fare they look for; a place for them to tap in to. I’ve had a lot of years to think about this, and I believe they’re looking for where they belong, you know? The Bradys, to a small extent, dealt with the world outside of the Brady household, but by and large it was all about what went on inside those walls. And that’s about how you deal with, and where you fit inside of, a crowded family with your brothers and sisters. I know I look back on my childhood, and that was the struggle. Getting along with my brother, finding my place within and being allowed to be me — whatever that meant — before I even knew who I was. It was more of a struggle in my own house, and I look back on it going, “Just because it didn’t have some of the aspects that the Bradys had, doesn’t mean that it can’t.” My mom, though, would have argued with you that real families aren’t like the Bradys. I would argue that she was wrong. That we have been told time and time again, by people who consume the show and love it, that it was just like their family. But just as many have also said, “My family wasn’t anything like the Bradys. That’s why I watched it. I was a latchkey kid, and you became my family.”

And so it works both ways and it functions for all kids who happen to be filtered through it as a home for them, as extended family members for them. As a result, of it being 50 years old, I don’t know if it’s that everyone is a Brady and they’re part of my family, or if I feel I have just been adopted, because I’m a Brady, by everybody. That’s how it feels. It feels like I’m not just a friend, I’m a family member because of The Brady Bunch. And that’s a powerful place to find oneself. And it’s a place I’m very grateful to find myself in.

It feels like the Bradys are getting one last shot with the HGTV show; like it’s the cherry on the Brady cake.

It quite literally is. We don’t want this anniversary to just pass, we want to make it real. It’s kind of like the final recognition that this Brady thing needs to physically remain, because it’s such a powerful reminder to us of a time when it felt like everybody got along. So let’s make that house, which is something that won’t go away. The reality is that after 50 years they want to make the house real. That’s powerful to me, because before this I didn’t even know where this house was and never worked there, even though it’s apparently the second most-photographed house in America — though I don’t know who keeps these records.

Some guy going around with a little chart, probably.

Maybe. The thing is, the house itself didn’t mean anything to me, but it’s become representational to an audience out there that doesn’t know that we didn’t work in there; doesn’t know that the inside isn’t the set that we worked on. They’ll learn it through the show, but the house, as it was, when you open the door it wasn’t at all the Brady house. But when you open the door eventually, it is the Brady house. And now it transcends the set, because it’s real. It’s a way of taking something that was fantasy and making sure you create a reality from it, almost as if you wished that Superman existed and you had the power to make a Superman, because you just felt better knowing he was around. You might not have that power, but you do have the power to make the Brady house and in this case they do it. And they do it for the 50th anniversary. That house came up for sale last summer just coincidentally. Timing being what it is, they purchased the house pretty quickly and I don’t believe it dawned on them, or they were even aware at Discovery, that the 50th anniversary laid right around the corner. It’s sort of a confluence of lucky strokes that bring it to bear at a critical time.

Last time we spoke, the renovation was in the early stages. Being on the other side of it now, was it mind-blowing for you?

You’ll get to see how mind-blowing it was, because I didn’t see it coming. There’s a disconnect between us who worked on stage on this wonderful set, and it was a wonderful set that was extraordinarily well-thought out. It photographed beautifully and represented an upwardly mobile family, maybe even affluent but not necessarily over the top affluent. It wasn’t trying to go for that. But it was the kind of house every kid wishes they had. More so, it was also a happy place where the family was generating everything that worked inside this house, and the house retained the glow. All of us together, with the house being like the 10th character, is also an important ingredient to all of that.

Which is interesting considering that it truly was just a set.

It was clearly in my mind only a fantasy. When you had that establishing shot of the house, that’s what America has grown to know as — and even Google represents as — the Brady house. But it wasn’t the Brady house to us. The Brady house to us was a set at Paramount, so when you open the door to the real house, you don’t expect it to be anything like the Brady house. But now, lo and behold, it is! By the time the thing is over, we’re opening the door to the Brady house and now it’s not a set. So it goes from being nothing at all like the Brady house to being more the Brady house than the thing we worked in. So it’s a wonderful transcendence and expression of taking fantasy and turning it into reality.